In this work we have revisited the case of light vector bosons coupled to anomalous
currents which are UV completed by new anomaly-cancelling heavy fermions (anomalons).
After the latter have been integrated out,
WZ terms of the type in Eq. (REF ) are generated. On the one hand, they take care of anomaly cancellation in the IR and,
on the other, they source the energy-enhanced emission of longitudinally polarized vectors, \(\mathcal {X}\) , which
typically results in very strong bounds on \(g_X / m_\mathcal {X}\propto 1/v_X\) 
whenever the decay channels
\(Z \rightarrow \gamma \mathcal {X}\) , \(B \rightarrow K \mathcal {X}\) , \(K \rightarrow \pi \mathcal {X}\) , etc, are kinematically open
[1]}, [2]}.
Here, we have studied the model-dependence of such bounds, considering as a paradigmatic framework the
gauging of the most general (anomalous) linear combination of SM global symmetries, \({\rm U}(1)_X\) , with the
generator \(X\)  given in Eq. (REF ).
To this end, we provided a UV completion including electroweak anomalons \({\cal L}+ {\cal E}+ {\cal N}\)  (cf. Table REF )
to cancel \({\rm U}(1)_X\)  anomalies in combination with electroweak gauge factors and RH neutrinos to take care of
\({\rm U}(1)_X\)  anomalies in isolation when the lepton number generators are gauged.
An extra scalar \(\mathcal {S}\)  provides the spontaneous breaking of the \({\rm U}(1)_X\)  factor and gives mass to the vector \(\mathcal {X}\) .
Then, we have computed
the EFT of a light \(\mathcal {X}\)  when the heavy anomalons are integrated,
keeping in general both electroweak symmetry breaking and preserving sources for the mass of the anomalons (see App.  for details).
This allowed us to conclude (cf. e.g. Eq. (REF )) that the bounds mentioned above
on light \(\mathcal {X}\)  can be evaded in the limit where the mass of the electroweak anomalons comes mostly from the
Higgs VEV. This condition can be neatly imposed in terms of \({\rm U}(1)_X\)  gauge charges (so that the operators in Eq. (REF ) are allowed while
those in Eq. (REF ) are forbidden) or parametrically by decoupling the vector-like masses of the exotic leptons by taking a small yukawa and/or a
small VEV for \(\mathcal {S}\) .
On the other hand, mostly chiral exotic leptons (receiving their mass mostly from the Higgs VEV) are strongly constrained
due to their non-decoupling nature
by electroweak-scale phenomenology, in particular Higgs couplings and direct searches.
We have reviewed in Sect.  those constraints,
based on the previous analyses in [3]}, [4]},
and argued that it is possible to evade \(h \rightarrow \gamma \gamma \)  bounds for \({\cal Y}\approx 2,-1\) 
(including the exact cases \({\cal Y}= 2,-1\)  allowing for mixings between anomalons and SM leptons, cf. Table REF ).
For \({\cal Y}\approx 2,-1\) , however, the \(h \rightarrow \gamma Z\)  channel differs \(\mathcal {O}(1)\)  from the SM
and it will be possible to test this scenario at the HL-LHC. Direct searches, whose signatures depend
on whether the electroweak anomalons mix or not with the SM leptons, are also very stringent and they practically push the Yukawas
of the exotic leptons
to the boundary of perturbativity.
